Rush has finally focused on the Kosovo problem

Andy from Beaverton | 02/17/04 | Andy from Beaverton

[Andy from Beaverton]

Finally!!! Rush has finally focused on the problems with and in Kosovo. For some of us, we have been screeming about this since April of 1999. Before you decide to jump all over me for any Rush comments, he has almost never spoke about the aftermath in Kosovo. Sure at times he has spoken poorly about the Kosovo operation, but I can't ever recall him saying that we had choosen the wrong side. The question is going to be if he actually goes more in depth or if this is going to be it???

[Hoplite]

It never f'n ends.

[joan]

These are some photos of Aleksinac after it was bombed. Where are the destroyed tanks and army vehicles? Where are the soldiers? How can you say this wasn't directed at the civilians?

[JCB]

The Muslims and their TO forces were numerically superior but that means little if the other guy as 120mm guns and T-55/M-84 tanks.

The Muslims did have the Croats and local HVO forces as allies but they were not the same kind of allies as Serbia was to the Bosnian Serbs. The Muslim-Croat alliance was always a weak one as neither side trusting the other. It eventually fell apart completely during the 1993-94 war-within-a-war. By 1993 there was very little major Croat-Serb fighting in Bosnia and it largely stayed that way until 1995 when Operation Storm spilled over into the Bihac region.

As for the Slovenes and Croats in the JNA, of course they "betraying" and "sabotaged" the efforts of the army that was trying to force them to stay in Yugoslavia against their wish.

"When the Muslims failed taking over certain towns, the mistrust created caused them to go to a Muslim held town bring their family and fight from there."

So in other words the Muslims of Zvornik and Bileljina tried to break out and take surrounding regions but were then beaten and forced to retreat to places like Zepa and Screbrenica? So what BiH campaigns were launched from Bileljina and Visegrad before Arkan arrived in April 92? Never heard of any.

Given the ease with which the region fell, I'd say it was the Serbs who tried to take the towns.

[JCB]

Joan, I don't doubt that civilians were killed by NATO bombs, just as Afghans and Iraqis were also killed. But c'mon - anyone who knows ANYTHING about war knows that the USAF and NATO did NOT target civilians. The odd missle here and there or a train-on-a-bridge bombing doesn't change that. Belgrade would look like Grozny (or maybe Vukovar?) if the USAF took off the gloves with little regard for civilians. You KNOW this!

You're JUST using individual examples of civilian losses to tug at the heartstrings to portray a mass indescriminate killing. Serbia is 10 million strong. 500-1,000 dead in 78 days of bombing by the world's most powerful militaries should tell you just how careful the USAF/NATO was.

A single B-52 over downtown Belgrade could have killed THOUSANDS. Yet thousands didn't EVEN die in 78 days. Think about it.

[joan]

In certain parts of Bosnia, Croats and Muslims were allied for the entire war. The Bosnian 5th Corps, led by Atif Dudakovic, never fought against the Croats. These Bosnian Muslims who massacred Krajina Serbs fleeing Operation Storm. They attacked and killed Croatian Serbs within Croatia during Operation Storm in August 1995.

"wonders", who was a UN official all during the war, witnessed how these Muslims had stacked the Serbs' sheep they (the Muslims) had slaughtered into pyramids numbering 70 sheep each. Where's the mass media to report that? Nowhere because it wouldn't make their "innocent" Bosnian Muslims look so peaceful.

[wonders]

So what BiH campaigns were launched from Bileljina and Visegrad before Arkan arrived in April 92? Never heard of any.

Because there weren't any. April 1992: Arkan's doings in Bijeljina and Seselj's in Zvornik were pure acts of aggression (believe it or not, Selelj's thugs were actually far more destructive and murderous than the Arkanovci in this instance). Of course, in their POV, I suppose, they were "pre-emptive strikes."

[wonders]

joan, nobody gives a rat's tail about sheep. I only asked Trop about the sheep because I'd always been curious. Early on, the press didn't report on the carnage in Sector North because of the BBC technician who got shot in the head and subsequent threats against journalists. Later, it was "old news" and they were only interested in Srebrenica after Albright's sat photo business.

[wonders]

It is true that that HV and the ABiH V Corps were allies in "Storm". Not that HV liked it very much....

[JCB]

"The Bosnian 5th Corps, led by Atif Dudakovic, never fought against the Croats."

They were allies only because they faced a common enemy in the Croatian and Bosnian Serbs (plus Abdic's followers) that had Bihac surrounded in co-operation with the Krajina Serbs. In central Bosnia, where there were few Serbs, places like Mostar and Zenica were up for grabs, hense the 93-94 war.

The whole thing was like a Euro version of Afghan warfare where tribes and warlords are friends one day and enemies the next.

[greenwolf]

Rade Markovic was offered a plea bargain and witness protection by the Serbian Government. He accepted it and then reneged on it when cross examined by Slobo...

There are things in life for which no possible excuse exists. If any prosecution witness were ever to stand up and accuse prosecutors of trying to torture an accusation out of him in an American courtroom, the trial and the prosecutor's career would be over immediately, end of story.

[Hoplite]

There are things in life for which no possible excuse exists.

Like posting on FreeRepublic when you belong over at the Jurist's discussion site?

You haven't reviewed Markovic and Milosevic's exchange which started this 'torture' BS storm, have you.

[getoffmylawn]

Plus I'd wager that whatever aircraft deals were made with the Saudis were oeanuts compared to how much was spent on Bosnia and Kosovo. Thus it's unlikely that they ended up backing the Muslims only to appease the Arabs and sell F-15s.

This is a great post. The only thing I might disagree with is the above quote. The people that profitted from the selling of the aircraft to the Saudis were not the same people that had to pay for US actions in Bosnia and Kosovo. While a handful of people make a decent buck outta unloading some planes on Saudi Arabia, the entire citizenship of the US picks up the tab on our intervention - not a bad racket.

Don't get me wrong. In no way do I believe this is the one and only smoking gun that decided our actions in the Balkans. I just believe that it was one factor that shouldn't be quickly disgarded.

[getoffmylawn]

The violent end of Yugoslavia didn't rest on what the US or anyone else said or did.

I suppose I take exception to this line too. Although I believe violence was probably inevitable, German and US intervention made sure that flames of war remained stoked and fanned longer than was neccessary.

The act of ignoring the sacrifices of the Serbs from WW2 while handing out "get out of Yugoslavia Free!!" cards was enough to guarantee violence.

Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War

[Nov3]

When choosing between genocidal monsters on the one side

Maybe you ought to check and see what Peter Jennings is telling you to think now. Genocide BULL. Don't you think it is funny we never saw any mass graves from the missing 250,000 Albanians on TV? (Besides of course the occasional Gene Hackman movie!). Kosovo was invaded by Albanians and the Christian Population was being displaced by terrorist white slaving drug dealers. WHY DO YOU THINK YOUR BUDDY PETER CALLED THEM KOSOVO ALBANIANS? That would be because they were NOT Kosovars. They were Albanians. This was the single most disgraceful thing our country HAS EVER DONE. We gave Christians to Muslim terrorist! WAKE UP!

There is a genocide in Kosovo however. IT IS GOING ON NOW.

[Nov3]

I've seen 4000 people who would disagree, but they had holes in the back of their heads from Serb pistols and were too busy rotting to care.

Maybe in BOSNIA where irregular troops whose families had been also butchered wreaked horrible revenge but not in Kosovo where Regular Army Serbians were. Get your war straight.

[JCB]

The link doesn't work, although I assume you refer to the Alan Little BBC doc. Haven't seen it but the arguments are familiar.

At its core seems to be the asumption that everything in the region needed a US/German stamp of approval to make it so. I don't disagree that the West recognized Croat and Bosnian independence too soon (and without enough minority rights guaranteed) which made war more likely. BUT in the end it was those on the ground who decided to go to war and commit all the evils that followed. All too often I find the It's-the-West's-fault argument used to deflect responsibilty away from those who bare 95% of the guilt (ie. those who actually made the decision to kill). It's kinda like "well the West recognized Bsnia so you can't blame us for rounding up people and putting bullets in their heads!"

This is the worst and lamest kind of abdication of guilt and responsibility. It's the kind of argument you hear Leftists make when it comes to explaining war and corruption in the Third World. "Well all our colonialism from the 19th century messed up the region so it's really our fault that the Hutus of today decided to hack 800,000 Tutsis to death."

The attitude seems to treat the actual participants as brain-damaged children whom we must supervise at all times lest they start beating eachother with the Tonka truck toys. The people of the Balkans can't expect to chart their own successful course unless they take responsibility for what they did and what they do. Enough of this "the evil powers forced us to do it" co-out!

I know that's not what YOU meant to say, but unfortunately the West's role is often used to give the guilty a sense of innocence they don't deserve.

[getoffmylawn]

...the actual participants as brain-damaged children whom we must supervise at all times lest they start beating eachother with the Tonka truck toys.

Unfortunately, I believe this is a very accurate description of the psychopath meathead elements of each and any of the ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia.

I agree that the West's intervention is used far too often to attempt to whitewash the crimes that were committed. I also believe that when you stumble upon two cats with their tails tied together and tossed over a clothes line fighting it out, the guy that held his finger on the string so the knot could be tied should be held (at least in part) responsible and their action should not be ignored.

[getoffmylawn]

Try that link again. It's working fine for me.

[joan]

The Muslim government released hardened criminals from jail and sicced them on the Serbs. In Serb testimonies, you'd find them mention a Muslim tormentor/killer who had been sent away for murder - often of other Muslims in prewar times. One Muslim in the Mostar area had killed his own wife and child a few years before.

From the testimony of a Serbian woman:

31. The witness 595/94... Mrmo Omer, a Moslem from Mostar, was also among the blackshirts. I knew him from before. He had been convicted of the murder of his wife and daughter.
http://www.balkan-archive.org.yu/politics/war_crimes/report6/mostar.html

Obviously, these kind of facts can be confirmed with good investigative and detective work. Records on Mrmo Omer could show the murder conviction, along with finding the names of his wife and daughter and their graves, and so on. Then information on when he was let out or got out of prison (was he indeed no longer in prison during this time of the war - July 1992) to help supplement her testimony, if true.

I've ran across other cases too. One of the commanders of Srebrenica, not Naser though, had been in jail for murdering some number of Muslims (maybe 3) a few years before the war and had been in jail for that.

These types would have no qualms about murdering Muslims, during the war, who did not go along with their program. And there were murders within Srebrenica committed by Muslims on Muslims before the fall.

[greenwolf]

NATO hit hospitals, trains, bridges WHILE CARS AND PEOPLE WERE ON THEM, the rescue crews to these attacks, apartments, houses, TV stations, buses, homes, office buildings, businesses, industry, sewage plants, the electricity grid, power plants, petrochemical plants, and on and on.

Suffering damaged infrastructure and death by this which would cause prolonged suffering was a favorite of the sadists. Only a terrific rebuilding effort kept millions from freezing to death that winter.

NATO tried bombing Serb military targets from 30,000' for about a month, and then started bombing civilian infrastructure targets and targetting civilians outright, which is criminal conduct under Geneva conventions adopted in 1947.

In other words, the net effect of all of these BS cries of genocide was to have American tax dollars being used to bomb innocent Christians for the benefit of a branch of AlQuaeda, the KLA, in direct defiance of Geneva conventions.

As I see it, Slobodan Milosevic was too nice a guy and came in last. In theory at least, he could have rounded the "Albanian Kosovars" up into one place and announced a policy of killing 100 of them a day until the NATO operation stopped.